Animal Groups Collaborate to Reach No Kill in San Antonio

Citizens with their pets at the Pet Pawchanga hosted by Talk About It! and Big Dawgs San Antonio

The progress that San Antonio has made towards achieving No Kill is definitely heading in the right direction. Despite what kinks that still need hammering, the progress that has been made is a result of the collaborative efforts made by animal welfare agency staff, dedicated community volunteers, universities, businesses, City officials, and the San Antonio Area Foundation. Texas’ population had a 20 percent increase over the last ten years, making San Antonio the 7th largest city in the nation with over 1.7 million people! So resolving our city’s pet overpopulation issue while reaching no kill has shown to be a multi-step process that must involve all the key players, which we are proud to say our community has worked very hard in doing so.

Last week we reported that the San Antonio Area Foundation released their Quarterly Report of the Animal No Kill Program. This week, we wanted to touch up on some of those successes. In 2006, 4,684 dogs and cats were adopted, transferred to rescue groups, or returned to their owners from Animal Care Services. In 2010, Live Release was 6,983, which is a 49% improvement, but becoming a No Kill City cannot be accomplished by one single organization. In 2010, our community came together to collaborate resources and coordinate programs that has shown to be a more effective approach to becoming No Kill.

Last year, the San Antonio community worked together to:

Perform over 48,000 Spay/Neuter surgeries in all the high-volume, low-cost clinics, of which almost 13,000 of those were free.

Increase support for trap-neuter-release programs for feral cats that resulted in over 4,000 feral cats being sterilized and returned to their colonies in San Antonio.

Accomplish over 1,000 pet adoptions through 14 community events coordinated by AAPAW and local rescue groups.

UTSA Project Leaders of the Learn and Serve No Kill Project at one of the Talk About It! Pet Fiestas.

The Talk About It! campaign provides a venue for animal welfare organizations, community leaders, and local businesses to expand the impact of the animal no kill initiative collectively through partnership and collaboration. Talk About It! urges San Antonio residents to spay or neuter their pets; provide them a safe and healthy home; and adopt, foster or help homeless pets. Working together, we can realize the goal of making San Antonio a no kill community. Talk About It! is focused on what we CAN do in San Antonio – Care, Adopt, Neuter. Achieving No Kill means that the City of San Antonio will not euthanize any healthy, treatable or adoptable cats or dogs due to lack of space or because their owner does not want them any longer.

Last August, we introduced the Talk About It! campaign to the San Antonio community. Since then, the Talk About It! campaign has collaborated with a number of organizations within the animal welfare community; accomplishing so much in just four months:

468 spay/neuter surgeries from the 14 spay/neuter clinics organized by Talk About It!

When we look at San Antonio’s efforts towards achieving No Kill, too often we focus on the challenges and obstacles of this initiative because each day we know that innocent lives are at stake if we do not act fast. All the meetings, brainstorming and planning for collaboration seems so tedious and slow moving at times to our fellow partners, but to create a social impact by saving the lives of San Antonio’s dogs and cats, we need to do so collectively. Yes, everyday wonderful dogs and cats are still being euthanized which means we have not reached No Kill and we (as a community) still have a lot of work to do. However, on the bright side, the fact is that everyone working on this initiative loves animals, they want to share their love of animals with others, and they want to help the dogs, cats, and people of San Antonio. It is because of this passion, people are working together to create a bigger impact towards becoming no kill.

With Talk About It!, the message of “Care. Adopt. Neuter.” came down from the billboards and transformed into one-on-one conversations with people in the city. When you can have that kind of conversation with someone and build the connection between the three actions to the No Kill initiative, you can see the light bulb turn on in their minds and we have brought another person on board in understanding why this cause is a crucial one.

Everyone involved in San Antonio’s efforts to becoming No Kill has fueled the momentum so many times and in so many ways. Let’s continue to build progress San Antonio and make 2011 the best year yet for our dogs and cats.